raindancewx

Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA 05JUN2019 22.9-0.4 27.2 0.6 28.6 0.9 29.9 1.1 12JUN2019 23.1 0.1 26.9 0.4 28.4 0.7 29.8 1.0 19JUN2019 22.4-0.3 26.5 0.2 28.1 0.5 29.6 0.8 26JUN2019 22.1-0.3 26.5 0.4 27.8 0.3 29.0 0.2 03JUL2019 21.8-0.3 26.1 0.2 28.0 0.6 29.7 0.9 10JUL2019 21.7-0.2 25.9 0.1 27.7 0.4 29.7 0.9 07JUN2017 23.1-0.1 26.9 0.3 28.1 0.4 29.3 0.5 14JUN2017 22.9 0.0 26.7 0.2 28.2 0.5 29.4 0.6 21JUN2017 22.9 0.3 26.7 0.4 28.3 0.7 29.5 0.7 28JUN2017 22.8 0.4 26.5 0.4 28.1 0.7 29.4 0.6 05JUL2017 21.7-0.3 26.1 0.2 28.0 0.6 29.4 0.6 12JUL2017 21.8 0.0 26.1 0.4 27.8 0.5 29.3 0.5 08JUN2016 23.7 0.6 26.6 0.0 27.8 0.1 29.5 0.6 15JUN2016 23.3 0.4 26.6 0.2 27.8 0.2 29.5 0.7 22JUN2016 22.4-0.1 25.9-0.3 27.2-0.4 29.3 0.5 29JUN2016 22.6 0.4 25.9-0.1 27.1-0.4 29.1 0.3 06JUL2016 22.2 0.2 25.5-0.4 27.0-0.4 29.1 0.3 13JUL2016 21.8 0.0 25.1-0.6 26.7-0.6 29.1 0.3 Nino 3.4 is around 28.2C this May-July, v. 27.6C last May-July - favoring a wetter far southern US. Not much signal for winter from the -NAO in May-July.

Streak of colder year/year highs looks like it may end this July. May continue - will be close. From Oct 2018 to June 2019, each month was colder than Oct 2017 to June 2018. July 2018 had a high of 92F. We're below that now, but a fair number of mid-90s look likely for the next week to ten days.

The new Jamstec has a flat-Neutral winter now, with the eastern zones pretty cold. It has the SW cold, US warm. It looks a bit like a blend of 1931, 1987, 2004, 2004, 2016, 2017, 2017 for the oceans and US (a small pool of near average to slightly cool in the SW with a warm US). Something relevant will change by October, but low-solar Neutrals actually are pretty cold in the SW typically. Worth noting: in 2017, it didn't see a La Nina until September 2017. The July forecast is actually pretty close to the May forecast though, unlike in 2017, when the Spring outlook consistently had a moderate El Nino. The model also has a very hot Fall nationally - hottest Fall forecast I've seen from it actually.

Finally topped 95F today in Albuquerque - pretty late for that to happen for the first time in a calendar year. Have yet to hit 100F officially. Some areas in town surely did today though.

European has abandoned El Nino chances for winter. My personal, totally subjective odds are at 65% Neutral, 30% La Nina, 5% El Nino at this point. The subsurface, if you look back at July 2017 on the animations I post, is simultaneously warmer and cooler than July 2019. Nino 3 is already in La Nina territory this July on Tropical Tidbits, but Nino 3.4 is still warm in the western areas - I think that general look will hold for a while. You can think of it as an "east-based" cold Neutral? That's what I like for winter. Don't see the heat in Nino 4 going anywhere soon, and it should hold up Nino 3.4. A Neutral or La Nina winter, after an El Nino, with low-solar conditions and the east (Nino 1.2/3) colder than the west (Nino 3.4/4) is a pretty interesting winter. Low-solar, non-El Nino winters, after an El Nino include 1931, 1942, 1952, 1954, 1964, 1973, 1995, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2016. Winters a year after an El Nino tend to be titled toward warmth and wetness. Part of why I'm skeptical of a La Nina for this winter is how positive the PDO has become since April - very different from 2017 which had a similar subsurface and Nino 3.4 SST reading in June.

The subsurface for June 2019 was +0.24. For 1979-2018, that typically meant Neutral in winter, but you can see a few La Nina and El Ninos - weak - in there too. Subsurface becomes a much better indicator in September, the r-squared approaches 0.75. June 2017 subsurface was almost identical to this year, but followed a La Nina. Last year, June was +0.86. 100-180W Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec 1979 0.39 0.97 0.31 -0.21 0.06 0.35 0.19 0.49 0.91 0.63 1.06 0.92 1980 0.83 0.62 0.50 0.82 1.14 1.17 0.27 0.04 -0.26 0.02 0.35 0.61 1981 0.36 0.30 1.02 0.77 0.24 -0.22 -0.66 -0.59 0.14 0.25 0.02 -0.22 1982 0.21 0.56 0.92 0.93 0.96 1.01 1.11 1.61 1.86 2.07 1.92 1.45 1983 0.05 -0.81 -0.95 0.23 -0.32 -1.12 -1.51 -1.66 -2.15 -2.25 -1.81 -1.36 1984 -0.87 -0.90 -0.92 -0.77 -1.11 -1.15 -0.25 -0.22 -0.37 -0.93 -0.63 -0.35 1985 -0.16 -0.34 -0.65 -0.24 0.09 -0.02 -0.08 0.24 -0.20 -0.26 0.11 0.27 1986 0.21 0.41 0.46 -0.02 0.31 0.80 0.45 0.50 0.65 0.95 0.52 0.97 1987 1.22 0.17 0.60 0.31 0.58 0.37 -0.10 0.20 -0.25 -0.17 -0.37 -0.67 1988 -0.45 -0.88 -1.31 -1.76 -1.55 -1.22 -0.87 -0.72 -1.07 -2.01 -2.04 -1.65 1989 -0.89 -0.11 0.42 0.50 0.61 0.87 0.78 0.35 0.26 -0.02 -0.22 0.64 1990 0.78 1.08 1.14 0.65 0.05 -0.30 0.27 0.46 0.25 0.50 0.38 0.88 1991 0.92 0.29 0.18 0.80 0.76 0.77 0.73 0.49 0.60 1.41 1.22 1.71 1992 1.57 1.98 0.83 0.38 -0.32 -0.78 -0.73 -0.73 -0.56 -0.50 -0.27 0.19 1993 0.27 0.28 0.56 0.81 0.42 -0.29 -0.40 -0.38 0.12 0.10 0.02 -0.33 1994 -0.62 -0.60 -0.40 -0.14 0.16 0.14 0.02 0.67 0.70 1.12 1.16 0.80 1995 0.51 0.13 -0.44 -0.60 -0.44 -0.14 -0.44 -0.84 -1.20 -1.03 -0.86 -0.84 1996 -0.29 -0.12 0.05 0.01 -0.16 0.17 -0.18 -0.35 -0.46 -0.30 -0.47 -0.30 1997 0.56 1.00 1.17 2.17 2.01 2.25 1.83 1.79 2.38 2.56 2.30 1.02 1998 0.00 -0.38 -0.61 -1.06 -1.75 -2.16 -2.29 -2.46 -2.15 -2.35 -2.33 -2.18 1999 -1.80 -1.61 -0.99 -0.91 -0.81 -0.52 -0.64 -1.21 -1.27 -1.07 -1.48 -1.55 2000 -1.28 -0.91 -0.64 -0.31 -0.18 0.08 0.03 0.00 -0.12 -0.37 -0.67 -0.96 2001 -0.56 -0.63 -0.29 0.26 0.11 0.46 0.61 0.12 0.35 0.28 0.22 0.17 2002 0.95 0.78 0.55 0.32 0.07 0.67 0.73 1.05 1.41 1.72 1.58 0.74 2003 0.27 -0.11 -0.06 -0.49 -0.85 0.13 0.53 0.03 0.10 0.34 0.54 0.17 2004 0.05 0.19 -0.10 0.21 0.30 0.04 0.83 0.78 0.87 0.61 0.78 0.79 2005 0.52 0.59 1.27 0.49 0.00 0.11 -0.20 -0.42 -0.33 -0.14 -0.57 -0.74 2006 -0.97 -0.92 -0.29 0.42 0.54 0.76 0.73 1.05 1.13 0.80 1.35 0.86 2007 -0.46 -0.77 -0.72 -0.59 -0.58 -0.18 -0.48 -0.68 -1.03 -1.19 -1.19 -1.08 2008 -1.50 -1.20 -0.45 0.02 0.17 0.38 0.42 -0.15 -0.69 -0.48 -0.77 -1.44 2009 -1.08 -0.50 0.08 0.65 0.87 1.13 1.05 0.79 0.76 1.04 1.75 1.36 2010 1.14 1.24 0.97 -0.06 -1.00 -1.34 -1.36 -1.74 -1.93 -1.92 -1.64 -1.56 2011 -1.27 -0.22 0.50 0.58 0.47 0.39 0.06 -0.54 -1.01 -1.26 -0.92 -1.07 2012 -1.17 -0.46 0.00 0.27 0.47 0.56 0.82 0.83 0.36 0.40 0.34 -0.27 2013 -0.59 -0.17 0.06 -0.06 -0.14 0.26 0.41 0.32 0.38 0.15 0.62 0.26 2014 -0.33 0.39 1.60 1.41 0.95 0.27 -0.18 0.39 0.64 0.53 0.90 0.54 2015 0.15 0.83 1.52 1.74 1.53 1.51 1.69 1.97 1.80 1.91 1.78 1.20 2016 1.25 0.56 -0.31 -0.88 -1.15 -1.05 -0.76 -0.71 -0.71 -0.92 -0.62 -0.24 2017 0.01 0.15 0.22 0.06 0.30 0.22 0.16 -0.40 -0.79 -0.97 -0.84 -0.75 2018 -0.16 -0.11 0.51 0.80 0.88 0.86 0.81 0.81 1.12 1.59 1.36 1.06 2019 0.59 0.94 1.19 0.41 0.07 0.24

Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA 05JUN2019 22.9-0.4 27.2 0.6 28.6 0.9 29.9 1.1 12JUN2019 23.1 0.1 26.9 0.4 28.4 0.7 29.8 1.0 19JUN2019 22.4-0.3 26.5 0.2 28.1 0.5 29.6 0.8 26JUN2019 22.1-0.3 26.5 0.4 27.8 0.3 29.0 0.2 03JUL2019 21.8-0.3 26.1 0.2 28.0 0.6 29.7 0.9 Heat is draining West in the Nino zones? On the subsurface data, the weekly value is still neutral. In 2016, Nino 3.4 was already in La Nina territory by this point, with Nino 1.2 quite warm still. Some very early ideas for winter - will change several times by October 10 - AMO and PDO both more positive than last year. - Eastern Tropical Pacific colder than Western Tropical Pacific. - Low Solar - how low is an open question. - If the -NAO lasts all of July, that is a fairly strong cold signal for the East in December. - Cold Junes highs are much more likely than other Junes to be followed by cold winter highs in the Southwest. In Albuquerque, 12/19 winters are 2F or more below the 100-year average high after a June that is cold. This is offset this year by the tendency for winters to be warm here a year after an El Nino.

I tend to look for extended periods of blocking / unusual patterns at the solar minimum. That seems to be what is happening, the NAO has been negative pretty consistently since May. Prior to the NAO help, you tend to have severe Oct-May periods in the SW when an El Nino follows a La Nina at the solar minimum. People dispute it, or say it is auto-correlation or whatever, but all the solar-minimum periods (<55 sunspots from July-June) featured at least one severe winter in the US for extreme cold, it's much more common statistically for the US to be cold by the minimum. The snow also seems to be self-reinforcing for cold. The ground stays white, longer. Then wet, longer. Harder to build heat. So Albuquerque has yet to hit 96F as of July 6 (we won't on the 7th either since it rained a lot today), which has happened like seven times this late into the year since 1931, and only three times since 1950. It has snowed more or less every 10 days to three weeks in our mountains (NM) from mid-Oct to mid-June.

You all should sneak away from your locations and find a way to go white water rafting on the Rio Grande River this year - conditions are amazing. Beautiful, cold level four rapids to cool you off from the dry 90 degree air. Anyway, my hunch is that the remaining warm pool and the incoming cool pool, at least for the short term, will lead to some, but not dramatic cooling. We'll see. They effectively look evenly matched for now.

On my white water rafting trip today, the highest peaks in Northern New Mexico still had a little bit of snow. The guides for the trip were saying the run off on the Rio Grande was the best this late in the season in over 20 years. The rapid were pretty nuts, and the water was still very cold for July.

ONI came in at +0.7C for Apr-Jun 2019. Year DJF JFM FMA MAM AMJ MJJ JJA JAS ASO SON OND NDJ 2010 1.5 1.3 0.9 0.4 -0.1 -0.6 -1.0 -1.4 -1.6 -1.7 -1.7 -1.6 2011 -1.4 -1.1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.5 -0.7 -0.9 -1.1 -1.1 -1.0 2012 -0.8 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.2 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.0 -0.2 2013 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3 -0.4 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 2014 -0.4 -0.4 -0.2 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.7 2015 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.5 1.8 2.1 2.4 2.5 2.6 2016 2.5 2.2 1.7 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.3 -0.6 -0.7 -0.7 -0.7 -0.6 2017 -0.3 -0.1 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.2 -0.1 -0.4 -0.7 -0.9 -1.0 2018 -0.9 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.7 0.9 0.8 2019 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 Here are monthly SSTs - https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt 2018 7 27.42 27.26 0.16 2018 8 26.95 26.91 0.04 2018 9 27.19 26.80 0.39 2018 10 27.62 26.75 0.86 2018 11 27.61 26.75 0.86 2018 12 27.49 26.65 0.84 2019 1 27.21 26.45 0.76 2019 2 27.49 26.66 0.83 2019 3 28.11 27.21 0.90 2019 4 28.46 27.73 0.72 2019 5 28.50 27.85 0.65 2019 6 28.25 27.65 0.60 My blend of 1966, 1966, 1987, 1992, 1993, 2015 for Summer had June at 28.20C in Nino 3.4 2015 6 28.90 27.65 1.25 1993 6 28.08 27.60 0.48 1992 6 28.30 27.60 0.70 1987 6 28.64 27.43 1.21 1966 6 27.63 27.35 0.29 1966 6 27.63 27.35 0.29 Analog Blend: 28.20C. Subsurface is fairly cold, but it is still warm near the surface and at the surface, so I think a slow cool down is likely for a few weeks at least.

June finished with a high of 87.9F in Albuquerque, and it never topped 95F on any day of the month - which is very rare, tied for 9th lowest individual June high since 1892 I think. Historically half of our 100F readings (or hotter) happen July 4th or earlier - so looks pretty promising if we make it to 7/4 without getting to 100F as forecast. After July 8th, only 35% of years will hit 100F at any point, and then it rapidly falls off from there, to less than 10% by the end of July. Cold Junes are substantially more likely to precede cold winters in New Mexico than average or warm Junes. That has my attention - but its still only like a 12/19 frequency relative to a 6/69 thing. Cold meaning a high 2F or more below the 100-year average. None of the El Ninos or borderline El Ninos that follow El Ninos are cold here historically - 1930, 1940, 1941, 1952, 1953, 1958, 1969, 1977, 1987, 1991, 2003, 2004, 2015. Neutrals are a different story though, and it kind of looks like we could see a Neutral, +PDO, +AMO, low solar, with a flat Modoki signature (0.0 in Nino 3, -0.2 Nino 1.2, +0.2 by the Philippines?) at the moment.

Those images of Guadalajara are pretty impressive. That's one way to cool the ground for sure. Albuquerque just had its coldest January-June average temperature since 1998 - running nearly four degrees colder than last year so far.

Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA 05JUN2019 22.9-0.4 27.2 0.6 28.6 0.9 29.9 1.1 12JUN2019 23.1 0.1 26.9 0.4 28.4 0.7 29.8 1.0 19JUN2019 22.4-0.3 26.5 0.2 28.1 0.5 29.6 0.8 -0.3 0.4 0.3 0.2 6/26 is only on this site for now - https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt Equatorial Upper 300m temperature Average anomaly based on 1981-2010 Climatology (deg C) YR MON 130E-80W 160E-80W 180W-100W 2018 8 0.75 0.73 0.81 2018 9 0.88 0.93 0.98 2018 10 1.08 1.29 1.47 2018 11 0.97 1.20 1.25 2018 12 0.71 0.88 0.92 2019 1 0.53 0.62 0.59 2019 2 0.59 0.76 0.94 2019 3 0.70 0.91 1.19 2019 4 0.21 0.39 0.41 2019 5 0.01 0.09 0.07 2019 6 -0.06 0.09 0.28 Annualized solar activity came in at 5.5 sunspots for the July 2018-June 2019 period. The solar cycle is roughly an 11-year interval, and this period was weaker than 2007-08, which had 7.2 sunspots annualized. For my friends in Boston, I'd like to remind you if we somehow keep the El Nino (unlikely now?) and low solar (pretty likely) into next winter, it isn't historically a great setup for snowfall. El Nino Sun Jul-J Bos Snow 1899 18.2 25.0 1900 8.6 17.5 1902 18.7 42.0 1911 5.4 31.6 1913 7.4 39.0 1914 44.5 22.3 1923 14.6 29.8 1930 46.3 40.8 1953 9.5 23.6 1963 29.1 63.0 1965 37.1 44.1 1976 23.2 58.5 1986 19.1 42.5 1994 36.9 14.9 2006 20.1 17.1 2009 13.2 35.7 2018 5.5 27.4 Mean 21.0 33.8

Canadian has a somewhat weaker El Nino in winter this run. Some big differences in the Canadian and CFS for July too. The CFS actually looks closer to what I expect. July looks like a derecho pattern.

El Nino looks pretty dead on Tropical Tidbits. Unfortunately for those of you in the South, a warm Nino 3.4 in March, April, May still is strongly correlated to a hot July, and the CFS has a pretty hot looking July now in the South. Canadian should be out with its new thoughts for weather and ENSO later tonight.

June 2019 is going to have one of the 20 coldest June highs since 1931 in Albuquerque, 9th month in a row with a year over year decline in high temperatures. Snow in the mountains on June 4th and June 17th. The high through 6/29 is 87.65F - long-term June average is a touch of 90.0F. Here are some years, after El Nino winters, with highs in the 86.9 - 88.9 range in Albuquerque - 1931, 1940, 1966, 1970, 1987, 1988, 1992, 2003. Blend of 1940/1992 isn't bad nationally. My Summer Analog blend from May 10 was 1966, 1966, 1987, 1992, 1993, 2015. Here is how that is doing locally, for highs - Method 1 June July August September 1966 88.7 93.7 89.3 81.9 1966 88.7 93.7 89.3 81.9 1987 88.0 92.6 87.8 82.4 1992 87.8 90.5 88.6 85.0 1993 91.0 94.8 88.5 83.6 2015 90.8 88.4 91.5 86.2 Blend 89.2 92.3 89.2 83.5 I think I weighted 1966 twice in my blend, too heavily, but as a blend, it was the right idea nationally for June.

CPC changes its mind, but by subsurface conditions, or the current ONI baseline 2014-15 was an El Nino. If you use 26.5C, the 1951-2010 average in Nino 3.4 in Dec-Feb, the SSTs qualify 2014-15 as an El Nino. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt 2014 10 27.16 26.75 0.40 2014 11 27.46 26.75 0.71 2014 12 27.32 26.65 0.66 2015 1 27.06 26.45 0.61 2015 2 27.18 26.66 0.52 2015 3 27.77 27.21 0.56 2015 4 28.53 27.73 0.79 2015 5 28.85 27.85 1.01

The 1991-92 El Nino lasted into Summer and the kind of fell apart in Fall. I've been looking at that year. AMJ this year is probably around +0.7C against the base CPC uses. I think a lot of people consider 1992-93 an El Nino but it wasn't in winter by ONI, and then mid-1993 was again for a bit. Since 1950, June has only been above 28.0C one time before going into a La Nina in DJF (SSTs of 26.0C for the following winter, or colder). So will be interesting to see what Nino 3.4 comes in at for June. In 2017, we went from 28.06C in June in Nino 3.4 to 25.72C in Nino 3.4 in DJF for 2017-18, that transition is similar to 1933 in the extended data, but there is no other year that goes that warm, to that cold since 1950. 1983 went from 28.27C in June to 26.0C in DJF 1983-84. If June finishes around 28.35C, that is +0.7C on the CPC standard for June. I kind of lean Neutral for winter, just because there is still some subsurface and surface warmth now, but there is definitely a fair amount of cold below the surface. It has been a while since we've had a Neutral. Year DJF JFM FMA MAM AMJ MJJ JJA JAS ASO SON OND NDJ 1990 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.4 1991 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.8 1.2 1.5 1992 1.7 1.6 1.5 1.3 1.1 0.7 0.4 0.1 -0.1 -0.2 -0.3 -0.1 2017 -0.3 -0.1 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.2 -0.1 -0.4 -0.7 -0.9 -1.0 2018 -0.9 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.7 0.9 0.8 2019 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 Snow pack in this El Nino was much more durable than in recent El Ninos in the mountains of the Southwest -

In New Mexico, some of the populated towns, Red River (8600 feet) and Las Vegas (7,500?) have reported accumulating snow in June on more than one occasion in the past 100 years. Last snow is usually February-March in southern valleys in NM, March-April in northern valleys, but April/May isn't unheard of. Southern mountains last snow tends to be Apr/May, northern mountains it tends to be May/June. Late June is very rare, but it did snow a bit north of Los Alamos as recently as June 17. The Taos Powderhorn site is almost melted out now, but it has had measurable snow non-stop from Halloween to now, at 11,000 feet. Our top peaks are 13,000 feet here, so presumably there is some snow to melt yet. It does seem like the very late / early snows in the West need "help" typically when they occur - either a volcanic year or a low solar year with the ENSO/PNA signals right.

Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA 15MAY2019 24.1-0.1 27.5 0.4 28.5 0.7 29.5 0.8 22MAY2019 24.5 0.6 27.7 0.7 28.7 0.8 29.7 0.9 29MAY2019 23.6 0.0 27.7 0.8 28.7 1.0 29.8 1.0 05JUN2019 22.9-0.4 27.2 0.6 28.6 0.9 29.9 1.1 12JUN2019 23.1 0.1 26.9 0.4 28.4 0.7 29.8 1.0 19JUN2019 22.4-0.3 26.5 0.2 28.1 0.5 29.6 0.8 Some weakening of the El Nino at the surface, particularly in Nino 3 in recent weeks. Subsurface heat from 100-180W is declining a bit on the ENSO weekly update too. June is still in El Nino territory. Nothing like 2015 though - 13MAY2015 26.4 2.1 28.2 1.1 28.8 1.0 29.8 1.1 20MAY2015 26.6 2.6 28.2 1.2 28.9 1.1 29.8 1.1 27MAY2015 26.3 2.6 28.2 1.4 29.0 1.3 29.9 1.1 03JUN2015 25.3 1.9 28.1 1.4 29.0 1.2 30.0 1.2 10JUN2015 25.7 2.6 28.1 1.5 29.0 1.3 29.9 1.1 17JUN2015 25.4 2.7 28.2 1.8 29.0 1.4 29.9 1.1 The 2015-16 El Nino was also dead already - 11MAY2016 24.9 0.5 27.6 0.4 28.4 0.6 29.4 0.6 18MAY2016 24.3 0.2 26.9-0.1 28.1 0.2 29.4 0.6 25MAY2016 24.0 0.2 26.6-0.3 27.7-0.1 29.4 0.6 01JUN2016 23.4 0.0 26.4-0.3 27.6-0.2 29.3 0.5 08JUN2016 23.7 0.6 26.6 0.0 27.8 0.1 29.5 0.6 15JUN2016 23.3 0.4 26.6 0.2 27.8 0.2 29.5 0.7 22JUN2016 22.4-0.1 25.9-0.3 27.2-0.4 29.3 0.5

I do think a lot of variability is still natural, how much is an open question. The Arctic is surely, what, half a degree to a degree warmer than in 2012 given that it is warming faster than the temperate zones? Something is counteracting that to change the patterns. Some of that is upper air patterns, but some of it is ocean temperature changes too. The AMO is not dramatically warmer anymore than it was in the prior peak of the AMO warm cycle. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.long.mean.data 1958 19.239 18.935 19.068 19.493 20.215 21.454 22.626 23.350 23.292 22.442 21.380 20.313 1959 19.293 18.863 18.700 19.146 20.024 21.176 22.433 23.203 23.208 22.405 21.248 20.206 1960 19.372 18.968 18.818 19.249 20.322 21.557 22.738 23.529 23.296 22.591 21.450 20.236 The prior peak produced AMO values in the 23.5-23.6C range in late Summer. We now get up to 23.8C, but the frequency of hitting 23.8C has been falling off in Aug/Sept since 2012, so I don't think I'm being too extreme in saying the AMO is holding back record low sea ice to some extent. The (black) ash landing on the highly reflective ice after the Arctic volcanic eruptions in 2011 couldn't have helped either. 2017 19.579 19.135 19.055 19.593 20.491 21.704 22.927 23.661 23.593 22.886 21.709 20.620 2018 19.529 18.974 19.022 19.376 20.179 21.387 22.645 23.467 23.408 22.599 21.240 20.199 2019 19.344 18.995 19.014 19.439 20.270 -99.990 -99.990 -99.990 -99.990 -99.990 -99.990 -99.990 Presumably, we'll melt less ice if this coming in 3-5 years? 1963 19.361 18.925 18.871 19.264 19.942 21.199 22.439 23.128 22.891 22.231 21.150 20.046 1964 19.131 18.783 18.779 19.017 20.070 21.252 22.334 22.970 22.876 22.034 21.044 19.988 1965 19.011 18.587 18.665 19.069 19.934 21.124 22.292 22.997 22.876 22.060 20.937 19.98

My hunch is the AMO peaked for Summer-time SST warmth around 2012, and we'll continue to not beat the lows achieved that September. The periods near the prior AMO shifts tend to have stories like this if you look back in newspaper archives from the 1800s and 1900s. During the prior peak of the AMO warmth in the 1950s, there were reports that Summer sea ice extent was around 5 million square kilometers at peak melt. Other than 2012, that's not dramatically different than now. There were also reports earlier in 2019 of volcanic ash reaching near 50,000 feet above sea level, before the final data was corrected lower - eventually there will be a big volcanic eruption in the tropics, it's coming up on 30 years now since Pinatubo. Severe cold in the West & Plains, ala 2016-17 or 2018-19 during winter also tends to occur near AMO shifts historically. Look at 1932-33, 1935-36, or the winters around 1960. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/58314725

Happy late June.

Nothing like fresh snow on June 17th in the Southwest.